Colfax County

Schuyler Colfax, vice president under Pres. Ulysses S. Grant, is shown in this portrait. He is the namesake honored in the naming of Colfax County and the town that was designated as the county seat, Schuyler, Nebraska. Colfax was the founder of the International Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) and the Rebekah Lodge for IOOF women. (Courtesy of Schuyler Historical Museum.)

Early settlers claimed their homestead site by digging into the side of a hill and living in a dirt-floored dugout until they could erect a sod house. This sod house, located near Schuyler, was near a windmill that was used draw water up from the well. Sod houses, or “soddies,” had thick walls for protection against the extreme weather conditions prevalent on the treeless plains. (Courtesy of Schuyler Historical Museum.)

Charles Novotny homesteaded 16 miles north of Schuyler, near Clarkson. He built a wooden house to use as his domicile in 1869. Featuring windows on two levels, perhaps it had a loft for storage or sleeping quarters. There appear to be vents on both sides of the door. A wide chimney is visible on the left side, presumably for a fireplace that was used for heating and cooking purposes. (Courtesy of Clarkson Historical Museum.)

Teams of oxen performed double duties in the life of pioneers. They not only pulled covered wagons or prairie schooners on the long trek to the frontier, but they also became the workhorses in the field. This unidentified farmer is following on foot to guide the oxen and plow in straight furrows. Children learned the responsibility of hard work at a very young age to build their own future. (Courtesy of Schuyler Historical Museum.)

An unidentified gentleman plows the virgin prairie with a horse-drawn plow. Some of the early settlers were not fortunate enough to have horses and had to pull the plow with a harness around their torso as another pushed the plow through the thick roots of the grassy sod. (Courtesy of Schuyler Historical Museum.)

After plowing, planting, purging the weeds with a disc, and praying for rain, a bountiful harvest is a boon for the farmer. The crop is picked by hand or machine and stored in the corncrib until it is needed for feed for livestock or to take it to town as a cash crop. Here, the men are shelling the corn from the cob. (Courtesy of Schuyler Historical Museum.)

This army of over a dozen binders, or grain reapers, is systematically windrowing and binding bundles of grain at harvest time. A team of horses (or horses and mules) pulls each unit. They follow in offset tandem to quickly glean the crop. These bundles are then gathered and hauled with by the animals to the thresher. (Courtesy of Dan Wisnieski.)

With a steady influx of settlers, the need arose for businesses to supply equipment and repairs. Enterprising pioneers like the Schmid family built the Schmid Blacksmith Shop in 1890. Posing in front of the shop are, from left to right, Cyril Schmid, Stanley Schmid, Jerry Schmid, and E.B. Schmid. (Courtesy of Judy Brezina, Schuyler Historical Museum.)

This shows the interior of a metalworking and machine shop in early Schuyler. The two men shown working in this shop are blacksmith T.F.W. Hegner (left) and John Krca. The business was located north of the Bolton Store in the 1870s. (Courtesy of Schuyler Historical Museum.)

The calendar on the left wall says January 1916, giving the approximate date of this photograph, which was taken in Charles Novotny’s Cream Station. Cream cans, like the one shown near the right, were often seen sitting at the depot, waiting to be picked up or returned to the train station. The shelves behind Novotny hold items for sale, and the central heating system is the coal- or wood-burning stove in the middle. (Courtesy of Schuyler Historical Museum.)

With the horse-powered equipment and transportation being used in the late 1800s, business was thriving for blacksmith and horseshoe experts. J.J. Misek of Schuyler built his shop and advertised on the building façade with his name in large letters, followed by “Blacksmith and Horseshoer,” which was painted below on the raised storefront. Five men and a dog are visible in the doorways. (Courtesy of Schuyler Historical Museum.)

The first wooden bridge was built across the Platte River in 1872 at a cost of $60,000. The wagon bridge was built three-quarters of a mile east of Schuyler. Not all wagon traffic found it convenient to use the ferry service at Schinn’s Ferry, located five miles west of Schuyler. Low water levels created unsatisfactory crossing for the ferry, which hastened its end. (Courtesy of Schuyler Historical Museum.)

A field stands in bundles of grain called shocks. Soon, wagons or flat racks will be loaded to take the shocks to where the threshing machine awaits to harvest the heads of grain from the stalks. Once the grain is removed, the stalks remain in straw piles that are mainly used as bedding for livestock. (Courtesy of Clarkson Historical Museum.)

Harvest time is a family affair where everyone works. Three men and one woman fork the hay down from a stack to feed it into a baling machine. A young boy, his whip over his shoulder, keeps the horses moving to drive the baler. Another man moves the finished bales from the back side of the machine. (Courtesy of Clarkson Historical Museum.)

The Wells-Abbott-Neiman flour mill of Schuyler was first started in 1882 and expanded into this huge complex near the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. Farmers brought the grain to the mill to have it made into flour and took home by-products of shorts and bran for the livestock. Puritan Flour was shipped from this mill worldwide. The office is near the smokestack. (Courtesy of Dan Wisnieski.)

The T.B. Hord Grain Elevator had a 24,000-bushel storage capacity for grain. Farmers Grain Company purchased the elevator in 1916. This wooden structure was destroyed by fire in 1917. Farmers Grain rented lots and built hog yards near the elevator. After the fire, they erected a new elevator, the first concrete structure in Schuyler. (Courtesy of Schuyler Historical Museum.)

Each town and village had the need for its own elevator or mill. The Clarkson Milling Company was started in 1892 and built alongside the railroad tracks. This photograph, taken in 1898, shows how it expanded to include an elevator, as well as a smokestack, which was erected between the two buildings. A railroad car sits on the bottom right near the mill. (Courtesy of Clarkson Historical Museum.)

Shown here are five cowboys, a woman standing near the middle, and a young child on a pony next to her. To the left is a large hay pile that is protected by a wooden fence. In the upper right, a herd of horses grazes. The ranch house and other buildings are visible. This image is titled “Moon Ranch after Roundup”; the ranch is located north of Clarkson. (Courtesy of Clarkson Historical Museum.)

In 1916, Funks Sheep Ranch, located near Schuyler, had many hundreds of head of sheep in pens. Near the first two rows of fence are 13 men in suits, all lined up; the town is barely visible along the horizon. Another sheep ranch owned by A.J. Knowlin and Company had about 50,000 sheep from the 1890s until the early 1900s. (Courtesy of Dan Wisnieski.)

With the numerous heads of livestock that were destined for meat markets and grocery stores, the Ferenc family set up a slaughterhouse for processing. A pen full of cattle awaits its fate behind the men at the fence. From left to right are Rudy Sobeslavsky, Frank Lamplot, Emen Ferenc, Frank Ferenc, Ed Vitek, Bohumil Buchacek, and Emil Kacin. (Courtesy of Clarkson Historical Museum.)

The first Colfax County Courthouse was finished in 1872. Charles Lightfoot was contracted to build the structure for a bid of $18,300. The building was made of brick from Omaha and stone from LaPlatte Quarries. From left to right are D. Palmer, T.W. Whitman, H. Holcomb, Jos. Dworak, and Sheriff E. Hughes. The young lady seated on the step with her dog is unidentified. (Courtesy of Schuyler Historical Museum.)

A volunteer fire department in every community was tasked with containment and extinguishment of fires where possible. Many structures were wooden and fires were prevalent. This hose team of four men is posed near the Storz Brewing Company icehouse in Clarkson. The second man from the right is Vaclav Prokupek. None of the others are identified in the photograph. (Courtesy of Delva and Charles Prokupek.)

Seen here is one of several horse-andwagon bridges built in the late 1800s in Colfax County. Most of the creeks were not passable by horse-drawn wagons or buggies, and they would have to go a number of miles to reach a crossing. This team of horses is pulling a double-seated buggy filled with four unidentified men that are enjoying an outing. The creek is unidentified. (Courtesy of Dan Wisnieski.)